Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The Muggle children who were Rowling’s first generation of readers are three years older than they were when the last instalment of ‘Harry Potter’ appeared, whereas Harry, now 15, begins this book just one school holiday on from when we last left him. It is time to ditch the always unsustainable illusion that Harry’s growth is somehow in step with his readers’. Instead we have an altogether more improbable achievement. This massive doorstep of a book is accessible to any reader who can cope with its vast length. Give or take the appearance of some innocuous teenage sexual awakening, one actual death which is nowhere near so upsetting as rumours touted it to be, and some sharpening and effective satire on our own unmagical world, there is nothing here to deter the newest cohort of ten-year-olds. On the other hand, there is plenty for older, indeed very old, readers. The book is an immensely skilful piece of chameleon storytelling, changing its mood, depth and emotional colours with impressive ease.

The personal confrontation of good and evil between Harry and Voldemort – the world’s fate hanging on their drawn-out, mortal, single combat – is made more explicit this time, but uncovers little that existing readers won’t have guessed. The ritual interim clash between them forms as usual the climax of the book, but as before the numerous deviations of the plot are at least as entertaining as its central conflict. This huge episode isn’t solely or even mainly about Voldemort. It is about the Ministry of Magic’s tyrannous, harmful and crass interference in the teaching and management at Hogwarts. That is to say, it is covertly about Ofsted, and Secretaries of State for Education, and real-life government spin and ‘briefing against’ people out of favour, in this case Harry.

It is also about the pressure of OWLs (Ordinary Wizarding Level), and therefore GCSE, and choosing your follow-up NEWTs (A levels, naturally), and careers. And with wonderful light accuracy it is about teenage sex, and the mysteries of the volatile female psyche for 15-year-old boys. The magic cavorts inventively, across the spectrum from mischievous fun to deadly evil, but so (increasingly) does real life. And the gap between the two is perceptibly closing, once you spot the parallels. Does the book live up to expectations? Yes, it does.